The present invention relates to a beverage dispenser which discharges beverage ingredients from nozzles to supply the ingredients to a cup or the like together with diluting water, thereby providing beverage.
Heretofore, in a beverage dispenser for use in bag in box (BIB), a system is adopted in which a deriving tube drawn from the BIB is handled with a tube pump (peristaltic pump) to push a beverage ingredient out of the BIB, and the ingredient is mechanically mixed with diluting cooling water or cooling carbonated water to supply beverage (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-211299).
Moreover, in a beverage dispenser provided with a tank unit, the tank unit includes a beverage ingredient channel which supplies the beverage ingredient charged in a tank and which is provided with an electromagnetic valve and a flow regulator. The tank unit supplies the supplied beverage ingredient together with diluting water or carbonated water supplied from another tube to supply target beverage from a nozzle. In this case, the nozzle is a composite nozzle which discharges the target beverage in response to user's selection. A type of target beverage differs with different types of beverage ingredients supplied from a plurality of beverage ingredient tanks.
The beverage ingredients or the target beverages stick to and remain in these nozzles. If any measure is not taken, there is a danger that the remaining beverage ingredient goes rotten and becomes moldy in the worst case. To avoid the danger, it is considered that the beverage ingredient or the target beverage sticking to the nozzle be wiped off with cloth or the like, but this is not hygienically preferable. On the other hand, a system is adopted in which hot water or the like is passed through a beverage passage to clean the passage in an automatic dispenser or the like (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-108945).
However, it is difficult to completely remove the fixed beverage ingredient during the cleaning by use of hot water. It is also difficult to simultaneously sterilize and automatically dry the passage.